Vaisala builds new state-of-the art R&D and innovation center

Innovations and technology leadership are the cornerstones of Vaisala’s success. As customers need reliable and sustainable products that work anywhere from the freezing cold of the Antarctica to the scorching heat of Sahara, as well as from demanding industrial environments all the way to space, this is where the new R&D premises step in.

Throughout its long history as a leader in environmental and industrial measurements, science-based innovations have been at the core of Vaisala. As the need for accurate observations is ever increasing as a result of several pressing societal and environmental megatrends, Vaisala builds a new R&D center to further boost innovations for a sustainable future.

The new premises will be located next to the company headquarters in Vantaa, Finland. It will be a unique arena for product development, including all levels from starting co-innovation with customers to hardware and software design, development, and testing, after which also production to a large extent takes place at the same campus area.  

“We wanted to create the best possible premises for our people to create the best possible products and solutions for our customers,” explains Sauli Laitinen, Design Manager at Vaisala and project lead for the new innovation house. “From the start, our focus was highly on co-innovation and understanding the needs and requirements of our R&D experts. We teamed up with our employees to make sure that the new building serves our product development needs both now and in the years to come, and that it invites to co-innovating with both partners and customers as well as internally across functions,” Laitinen continues.

Curiosity and experimental product development in the center of the design

The planning of the new building has been highly user-centric, starting with a study of the users and their types of work as well as analyzing the typical lifecycles of projects. The team found that a core element of success is that collaboration runs smoothly throughout the projects and that we can drive experimental product development with a “From idea to product” approach.

“We have planned the physical building so that key spaces are located close to each other, most of them on one floor. This makes it possible to start innovating together with our customers in a meeting room, and very rapidly move from the ideation phase to concretizing a potential product for example using 3D printing,” Sauli Laitinen explains.

“As laboratories are located both near the meeting rooms and the main hallway leading to the other buildings at the Vaisala headquarters, this enables us to share our work with other teams and learn from each other. We believe this kind of openness will increase interaction and innovation, when ideas from different teams can find each other more easily,” Laitinen continues.

Working smoothly in hospital incubators, hurricanes and space

Whether our products and solutions is monitoring premature babies in incubators, helping nations and people to cope with extreme weather or going to space with NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover, they need to work reliably and accurately in the most extreme of conditions, always fulfilling demanding requirements for measurement performance.

To ensure the highest standards, we have custom designed testing equipment that mimics real-world conditions in a unique way. High-performance and long-term stability of the sensors is ensured by thorough testing in our versatile testing systems. Controlled and safe gas testing environments are always the basis for the development of top-class gas sensors for applications like biogas process control, transformer monitoring or hydrogen peroxide decontamination. In a nutshell, testing is a key part of our design process, and a truly essential element for Vaisala. 

Looking for a career with both a purpose and state-of-the-art products? Join us!

At Vaisala, we contribute to finding solutions to the grand challenges of our time, enabling decision-makers all over the world to make informed decisions that touch the everyday lives of millions of people today, and in the future.

Are you looking for a career with a purpose, and want to explore the innovation opportunities at our new R&D house? Check out our Vaisala Careers website and open positions – maybe you are the next colleague we are looking for!

Picture credit: Agile Work 2019